disarm you with a SMILE
by lovethatmonk
Summary: Alfred and Amira had, up until now, lived content lives together but with war progressing in Vietnam, it has become obvious that the two stand on different sides of the spectrum. However, deep in the jungle, Alfred still relies on thoughts of her.


**I am aware that in canon, India is a male. But I've been roleplaying with a female India for two years now and have built in-character relationships that I love. It's not going to change.**

Dependency was something Alfred never handled well. It made him feel vulnerable, which led him to feel uneasy, which led him to be distracted and distractions were something he did not need. The only time he allowed himself to be distracted was late into the hours of the night in the security of whatever he found himself sleeping in that night. Alfred had many photos to go through in his short time of comfort, but Mira's was always first. He would stare at her photo for an hour, maybe more, wondering what she was doing or how she was getting through the night without him there to hold her. Sometimes he wondered trivial things like what she was wearing or what did she have for breakfast that morning. But most importantly, he wondered if she thought about him as much as he thought about her. There were many disputes between the couple over the topic of war which, in times of trouble, had led Alfred to mildly believe that she was growing a disconcern for him.

There were many women in Alfred's life—some more important than others—but Mira was the woman whom he loved like no other. He had stuffed his wallet thick with photos of people, each one arranged first to last in order of importance and hers being first. Alfred had many people to remember but he always took the most time to think about her. He clutched tightly to her photo in dim candle light until the dampness in the air extinguished the candle. In that short time, he would memorize everything about the woman in the photo: the exact way her dark hair flowed in the wind, the contrast of her dark skin to her white dress, the brightness of her smile which was even more evident than the glare of sunlight in the top left corner; all of these things, right down to the shade of his flowers in the backdrop of his back yard. He memorized all this so he was prepared for when the flame died. When the small light in his equally small and insignificant little world extinguished, she was still there—still smiling. She would be his light—she would get him through this. In the dark, cold and alone, he pressed her photo gently to his lips and closed his eyes, picturing the woman vividly. Though he hated to admit it—by god he _hated_ to bring his machismo down a level, even for his woman—he depended on her image. Through every single duck-and-cover, through every single teary-eyed and blood-stained moment of blurred vision, she was there, leading him through it.

Alfred didn't fear dying; he feared being separated from her for the rest of eternity. He also feared that one day she'd ask him to stop writing her or that one day she would move on and forget her war-tainted hero or that he would come home only to find she had run off with another man. Never before had Alfred felt so helplessly dependent on someone—much less a woman—and he both loved and hated every bit of it. He loved the security and fulfillment of loving someone with all his heart; yet he hated the doubt and uncertainty that came with the process of being parted. Through bracing the turmoil of his subconscious, Alfred would comfort himself with the thought 'I'll get to see her in another month or so.'

As the year progressed, the longer and more difficult the nights became. Slowly, the photos in the back of Alfred's wallet began to vanish from his routine all together and he became more and more dependent on the photo at the front of his wallet. Eventually, months passed and Alfred still hadn't seen home. Most nights he would lay unmoving on the stiff ground with his jacket as a pillow as he stared out into the darkness and thought to himself. 'Who's taking care of the house? Is anyone? Have they all forgotten about me? I've let them all down…' As time marched forward through the brush and foliage, the absence of letters received convinced Alfred that he had already been erased from the lives of everyone he so depended on. On a normal night, Alfred would worry himself to sleep only to be unpleasantly woken by the smell of fire and gasoline in the distance. Nothing is going on, they would tell him, it's all in your head. So, his arms and legs itching with paranoia, Alfred would make his way back to where he slept and try to squeeze in another ten minutes of sleep. Grinding his teeth and scratching his arms feverishly, desperate to draw out the feeling of nervousness and anxiety from his bloodstream, Alfred worked away at his arms until they scabbed and bled. Wrapping up in whatever he could find, Alfred shut his eyes tightly and pictured himself in a better world with the woman he so desired to be with. He hated himself for the things he had said; he hated himself for the things he had done—these were the disdainful thoughts that haunted him in his lonely and helpless bedridden hours. Bloodshot eyes and a perpetual look and air of melancholy clarified that it had been years since the man had a full night's sleep. Alfred had quickly come to terms with the fact that everywhere he turned, no matter where in the world he was, someone was out for his blood. At night he shook, not because he was damp and cold, but because he was afraid; he was afraid to be afraid and he was afraid to admit it. Desperate measures usually led Alfred to discreetly plead to Mira for comfort or, if the situation was particularly grim—and ashamed of doing so—Alfred would crawl to Arthur for advice. His harsh words, spouts of anger and spirit-crushing insults always fueled Alfred to do better, prove him wrong…make him proud. But neither of them was there; neither of them would listen now—Alfred was sure of it.

In the war, some men had lost everything: families, friends, jobs, their sanity, their sense of pride, the feeling of joy; the monster of wartime had taken all these things away from them and Alfred was no different. Only, Alfred had managed to lose everything on his own accords. He had no one or nothing to blame for his misfortune but himself. He had always been a gambler and had never been afraid to risk it all or go big or go home, but Alfred was not used to losing or giving up his stakes. He had run away, shamefaced by the beast he had become in his own home. And Miller, that bastard, had to rub it all in his face. Alfred was very well acquainted with the fact that history repeats itself, but the comparison to the Salem Witch Trials—something which Alfred had never once approved—to the McCarthy trials was just appalling. Alfred valued every supporter he had that joined him in the fight against Communism. Consumed by the ideas of McCarthyism, dominoes and other controversies, Alfred had found himself on a path of destruction. Everything that stood between him and his ideals were uprooted in the path of the twister and destroyed; people, relationships, trust—all of it.

Eventually, Alfred's nightly routine had become his morning one as well. The photograph had become his bread and water, his above-all-other-things possession. But, there was a time when she too stopped writing him and this only spiraled Alfred even further down the emotional drain. Mira had all but denounced his existence, leaving him a broken and jaded individual. During this time, Alfred became even more dependent on her photo; he clutched to it in his sleep, cried to it long into the morning hours and carried it with him through the brush and bullets. In his mind, he was forcing her to be there, forcing her to go through it with him, forcing her to understand. After two months of this ritual, the photo became weathered, tattered and torn. As the image in the photo faded, so did the one in the back of his mind. For one final night, posing this moment as their final goodbye, Alfred pressed the photo to his lips, shutting the tears out of his eyes, and spoke softly to it. "I'm sorry I disappointed you," he whispered. "I never meant to hurt you either." He glanced down at the photo, the image completely washed away expect for the faint sepia tone image of her face. Choking back all the years of memories, laughing and crying together, holding each other in long intervals for no reason other than the fact that words could not express their happiness—it all threatened to come up his throat, followed by his makeshift dinner—Alfred put the photo away in the back of his wallet. Now, he was alone, accompanied only by his inner self that urged him through the process of war—the inner self that got him to hell in the first place. No longer was he plagued by the memory of a woman who was his last resort in humanitarianism; he had other ghosts to fight now. Alfred clutched to his rifle with a hard expression, somewhat inspired by the smell of fresh chemicals in the air, as he journeyed deeper into the jungle, ready to face the decade in front of him or die in the process. There were no restraints now, no emotional ties to keep him from accomplishing his goal. He glanced down, unsure whose blood coated his hands—was it his own? Forming his focused smile into a stiff grin, Alfred voyaged on through the jungle, fueled only by hate, a vision and a morning's ration of coffee.


End file.
